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%DIFFERENT LIFE FOCUS ATTENTION DYSFUNCTION MISTAKE+960417
  %ALIENATION ISOLATION ABERRANT TERRORIST CRIMINAL+960417
%LAW ORDER POLICE JAIL THREAT PUNISH COERCE VIOLATE 960417

     Different people focus their lives and attention upon
different kinds of focal points and in different ways:

     Physical  scientists   focus   their  attention  upon
impersonal objects and how impersonal objects  respond  to
the scientists'   manipulations  of  them---and  upon  how
impersonal objects respond to each other.

     Social scientists focus  their  attention upon people
and how people respond to the scientists' manipulations of
them---and upon how people interact with each other.

     Philosophers  and  theologians  focus their attention
upon   patterns   of   abstract   thought,    belief   and
articulations related to values,  ideals,  principles  and
ultimate  concerns regarding the nature of life and  human
fulfillment.

     Politicians   focus  their  attention  upon   getting
elected  by  projecting an image which attracts  votes  of
favor;  and upon  gathering  and  dispensing taxes in ways
which will lead to  them  getting  re-elected.    They are
greatly  concerned  with  how  others  perceive  them  and
respond to them.

     Business  leaders  focus  their  attention  upon  the
generating  of desires for goods and services  which  they
have to offer for sale; or which they might offer for sale
if they can generate  enough  desires  for such  goods and
services.   They  are  greatly  concerned with how  others
perceive and respond to them.

     Entertainers seek  to get  the  attention of selected
audiences in ways  which  lead to  the  entertainers being
regarded with favor and as  good to have around on special
occasions.   They are  greatly  concerned with  how others
perceive and respond to them.

     Many people  are  greatly  concerned  with how others
respond   to  them.    Some  people  are   dysfunctionally
concerned  with  how  others perceive and respond to them.
They  are  concerned with very little else!   Such  people
focus    little    attention   upon    useful    objective
accomplishments,  or  upon the  honesty  and integrity  of
their relationships with other people.  They often seek to
be in control of  how other people perceive and respond to
them.     They  become dangerously dysfunctional people in
many instances.

     It  is  helpful  to  recognize  the  wide  variety of
different foci of attention;  and the wide variety of ways
in which people focus attention upon the different foci of
attention.  Much of the diversity is healthy;  but in many
instances patterns of  where attention is focused and  the
manners of focusing attention becomes dysfunctional; e.g.,
when   patterns   appropriate  to  the   manipulation   of
impersonal objects are carried over  into the manipulation
of people, their perceptions and their responses.   People
become  unbalanced in where and how  they focus  their own
attention  and  the  attention  of  other  people;   e.g.,
becoming  dysfunctionally narrow and specialized in  their
foci and manners.

     While tolerance is often helpful; in other situations
we need to recognize  the  hazards in being indifferent to
aberrant and dysfunctional  patterns in where people focus
attention, and the manner in which the focus attention. In
some  instances  aberrant  people become  threats  to  the
integrity  of  the  community which ignores them in  their
alienation and isolation.    Often isolated and  alienated
people  are  dangerous  because  of  their  isolation  and
alienation.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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